


Lion Man

by Kooriicolada (WHM_Koorii)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestor-Era, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-10
Updated: 2011-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WHM_Koorii/pseuds/Kooriicolada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of moments in the life of The Sufferer and his closest comrades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All relationships are barely hinted at in this, heh, but they're there. Ish.
> 
> Anyway, short ficlet I wrote last night on a bout of weird, random inspiration.

Your furs rustle with every step you take. To most of the trolls inhabiting the planet they mark you as a heathen, a beast, no good but as a slave, if even that. Maybe one of the highbloods would condescend to see you as a pet. To you, it is a sign of pride. The pelt and skull you wear as a headdress used to belong to the beast who raised you before he was killed—a proud two-mouthed lion with a luxurious white mane. It's your mane now, and the pelts of lesser beasts adorn your torso and hips.

But _He_ doesn't see you like that. He saw you as a capable huntress, a being worth knowing. He didn't see you as a brainless monster when He found you crouched among the dismembered corpses of those who killed your pride all in the name of sport. He had reached out for you and helped you deal with the remains of your dead pride even if He had called you many many names. Even if He had a temper as rough as a cholerbear. It's that gruff nature that drew you back then and keeps you here now. You respect Him, and maybe if He were less of a leader you could even pity Him. Sometimes you wish He will pity you, but it isn't likely to happen. He is so focused He probably wouldn't notice if someone presented their tail to Him.

The lewd thoughts make your even pace stumble a bit, make you flush like a wriggler who's barely pupated.

With a swallow you pick up your pace again and pad barefoot over stone floor of the cavern. It's been worn smooth by the foot traffic of the inhabitants, but even if it hadn't been you probably wouldn't have noticed. You've never worn footwear a day in your life. You grew up in the wilds, after all, surrounded by your pride.

You head deeper and deeper into the caverns. Not quite as deep as the brooding caverns, and you've never run into a grub so you're pretty sure they don't even connect. It's deathly silent now, in a place that, once upon a time, had been full to brim with trolls of nearly every color of the hemospectrum. So many of you are gone now, lost to His cause and willingly so. But you know that He feels each loss as if it were a personal blow.

This is His rebellion, His revolution, and He will see it through or die trying. You have vowed to stay to the bitter end. He has taken the place of your former king, and you have never known an empress or a highblooded ruler. There has always only been the pride, and your guardian's soft mane, and the wilds. This is your pride now, and He is the King.

Eventually your path leads you to the heart of the caverns, to where you know His secret weapon and secret shame lie hidden. This is His treasury of sorrow, His vault of mourning, and you know better than to venture down here most days, but today is one of those days where you will risk it.

The massive stone doors are open, carved there in ages gone by—the product of a civilization you know nothing about nor care to learn of. There are swirling designs that you wish to trace with your fingertips, to follow with your eyes. There are great snarly beasts and strange runes that aren't like the runes you see Him and his captains and the other trolls inscribe on a daily basis. They tend to think you stupid, that you are merely His pet. They speak freely and He sometimes calls you his most valuable spy. You like that because it means you are important to Him.

You will repay Him by being here now, just as you have in the past and will do so again. He is the center of your world.

Inside the room is lit with an eerie purple glow that emanates from the spheres around the circumference of the room. The brightest ones are at the very center and shed their dark glow on His form. He is kneeling before the altar at the middle of the room, with His back to you. The shadowy edges of His coat pool against the floor, the tracery of bright red designs on it, culminating in a grandiose 69 between His shoulders, looks blotted out and too dark. The wild mess of His is hair pulled back in a long, shaggy hoofbeast tail—His very own mane. You wait, hovering in the doorway, balanced on your toes.

He doesn't seem to notice you. All of His attention is focused on the long, lanky figure spread on the altar before Him. The figure that used to be His best friend, His most trusted adviser. You used to know him as well. He was there when _He_ found you, but you were never quite as attached to him. His friend was always aloof and distant, or caught up in his experiments. He wasn't like _Him_ who paid attention to you even when things were darkest, but _He_ always made more time for _him_. You can remember all the times when you would curl in your pelt at His feet, as He sat before a crackling fire. The fire warmed your back and you would lazily watch it play on His face as He rested his chin on his hands, calm and composed and always always scowling. And then His friend would arrive, sweeping in with his long, yellow edged robes and over bright eyes, and precarious glasses, and they would speak. His voice was always a low rumble, like your former pridemate's growls and roars and purrs, and you loved it.

His friend's wasn't quite as gravelly, was more smooth and with a hiss that set your hackles on edge. The other always smelled of lightning and storms and it used to scare you, but He was there so you remained calm. He trusted him, and so you did as well even if he made you uneasy. For Him you will do anything. Sometimes, He would tell you that you and the yellowblood were the only ones he trusted in this world. That He needed the two of you to help him, and He would pet your head, run His fingers through your hair, and you would drift to sleep, content.

When he left, He lost a part of Himself that you know you will never be able to fill. It was a mutual choice, and it was for the best, but He will never forgive Himself for making it. It has saved so many lives, has advanced His cause, and yet you are sure that if He had to make the choice again He would not make the same one.

You can still remember when the yellowblood approached Him with the plan because you had never seen Him so great and terrible all at once. You do not fully understand what was going on now anymore than you did then, but the yellowblood had said, " _Thith mutht be done. For uth, for our people, and for thothe who depend on uth. I can bootht my power thith way, give you fair warning, and you can thave ath many ath pothible._ "

They had argued long into the night, and He had broken some of the beautifully painted goblets He had collected over the years and furnished His slovenly home with. He had taken his face in between His hands and held him close, so close, and then you had been chased from the room by a ripple of blue and red lightning that left your fur on edge for weeks.

You followed them when they left the next day, followed them here to the depths of His command base, to this room which the yellowblood had prepared. You watched as the yellowblood did something to himself and he slumped against Him, his blood sliding down from his eyes and mouth and nose. He had swept him up and laid him on the altar and the spheres had lit. And He...He had leaned over him and listened to the breathy whispers just barely leaking from his bloody lips.

You had left then, terrified and unsure and confused, and when next you saw Him you pretended that there was no yellow blood smeared on his lapel and no new haunted look in His grim eyes. You sat at his feet and batted at the corner of his greatcoat. He had not smiled for you.

"Once more, my old friend," His voice breaks across you roughly like the incoming tide. "Just once more."

The spheres glow brightly, the air sings with power, and almost achingly He stands and leans close to the still still yellowblood. He listens to the whispers, the warnings, and you wish you could see his face. All you can see is the tentative way His fingers press against the yellowblood's clasped hands where they rest atop his stomach. You do not leave this time, you wait until it has passed, and He wipes the yellow blood from where it has seeped onto his face with the cuff of His coat.

When He has finished smearing away every last blemish He turns and sees you. He stops, shoulders tense, and regards you for a long time. This moment always makes you nervous, makes you feel like you shouldn't be here. You have stumbled upon something sanctified and private. You fidget, the tail of your pelt caught in your hands unthinkingly. "I thought I'd catnip down here and tell you. Your catpun's are ready to see you."

He strides toward you, long paces, strong paces—a predator's prowl—and gives you a gruff nod of thanks. When he comes alongside you at the door he stops and touches your chin gently. You look into His red tinted irises and then away again, submissive to your King. He leaves without another word, and you feel as if you've disappointed Him somehow, but you're not sure how. You glance back at the figure lain out on the altar and vow silently to do even more to support Him in his quest.

The yellowblood gave everything for Him, and so will you. You release your tail and scurry after him.

You're all He has left, and you know that you are not enough, but you will try to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write something sad, and these three are so good for it. Next time I'll try and write something a little happier.
> 
> Oh, yeah so... Guess I'll just make this an sort of shortfic/drabble type series for these guys. Heh.

Eventually a night comes when you kneel beside the altar and the inevitable happens. As always you lie and tell him it's just one more time. As always your comatose friend brings his powers to the forefront for you. You lean over him, ear to his lips, and listen to the litany of names he speaks. He tells you who will die, and when, and sometimes, how.

Tonight is just a bit different. Tonight he chokes slightly, his throat thick who his own blood. His eyes weep a yellow too opaque to be tears. You've never seen him cry anyway.

Tonight the last name he speaks is your own.

You knew this would happen eventually, so you are not surprised. What brings the simmer of your unquenchable anger to the fore is that he does not divulge whether your death is worth anything. If you must die you have always hoped you would die as a martyr. You would be hailed by the lowbloods, held up for all to see as a shining example of what can be done. You, the freakish monster from outside the hemospectrum. They would rise up at the news of your death and throw down their tyrannical oppressors.

You've never really expected to live to do it yourself, no matter how hard you fought. You've existed with a feeling of painfully borrowed time since you were a grub. Mutant divergences like you don't tend to last long.

It would be almost welcome now, anyway. You carry far too much weight these days. In the past he stood beside you, brother in arms, partner, best friend, and, in the end, quite possibly so much more. You were never a very good troll, and it's probably thanks to him that you ever made it as far as you did. When you became the leader of a mighty rebellion he stayed by your side, degrading you for your stupidity with sharp words and sharper stares.

Nothing has been the same since you agreed to consign him to the fate he asked for. Nothing has been the same since he sacrificed himself to give you an advantage you wish you hadn't desperately needed.

As you always do you wipe the yellow blood from his face and try to ignore the eerie half lidded stare of mindless eyes. There is no intelligence behind them. They're more blank than they ever were before. Unseeing, unfeeling, unwelcoming. There is no challenge, no fire, no anything at all. Eventually they close again and his powers—perhaps all of him that remains—sleep.

You feel guiltily grateful that you can pretend all is normal when he looks as if he merely waits in sleep for awakening. You can pretend you did not seal his fate and erase one of the most important people to you.

You stand, straight and tall, and walk for the door where she waits for you. Seeing her there has become ever more frequent. It almost seems to accompany the growing hollowness in your cheeks and shadows beneath your eyes. You touch her cheek, the curl of her wild dark hair drifting out from under her headdress, the white fur of her pelt. She smiles at you, all willingness to please and nothing more.

It leaves a sour taste on your lips to kiss her, but you do it anyway and she curls into you with a happy exhalation. You feel for her deeply, but it is tainted by the loss you still feel, and the knowledge that you can not give yourself to her completely.

You belong to your rebellion, and the one you sacrificed. You belong to the gallows and the realm of the dead.

You will tell her to remain behind this time, to guard this place, and you will try to cheat death one more time, and the next time your name comes up you will play a gambit against yourself to decide if you will try to cheat death again.


End file.
